Category: Party

Early spring is the only time in the year when you can obtain fresh bear’s garlic (also called ramps or wild leek). In Poland it is a perfect time for it right now. Last year I made delicious Pesto, from this year’s batch I decided to make a bread spread: Bear’s Garlic Cream Cheese and a Bear’s Garlic Soup, which recipe is coming up soon. Stay alert not to miss my next recipe;) You can for example subscribe to my newsletter or follow me on Facebook or Instagram. Maybe you prefer Pinterest? Feel invited to choose your favorite way to stay in touch with me:)

Polish Easter Mazurek can be made in many different ways. Basically if someone says Mazurek, you can imagine short, about 3 centimeters high shortcrust pastry with custard made of chocolate, fudge or caramel and decorated with nuts, dried fruits and chocolate. The topping composition is of your choice.

Try my recipe which is very easy to make, it is rather basic, you need just a few ingredients and you get delicious dessert.

Classic Polish Chocolate cake is easy and delicious. Moist and fluffy, delicate, with perfect amount of cocoa and sweetness. Classic Murzynek Polish Chocolate cake was the first cake I have baked myself:) It was so popular during PRL and still is now. My children love this cake, they love to bake it themselves, my son even choose it as his birthday cake. Try this traditional recipe, Polish chocolate cake would suit well on Easter table, if you prefer to keep it simple but delicious.

Leśny Mech

Forest Moss Spinach Cake is not a traditional Polish cake, but is something that got very popular in Poland in the past years, so I decided to bake it and show you what are the latest trends in Polish cooking.

Forest Moss Spinach cake is easy and it doesn’t take long to make it, but the result may be spectacular and delicious on the same time:) It would also give a Spring touch on your Easter table!

I used recipe I found on one of the most popular Polish cooking sites: Kwestia Smaku. My favorite!

During Lent or if you just try to limit meat on your table, you may like to try this easy and healthy bread spread – Smoked Mackerel and Farmers Cheese Salad. Actually you can use any other smoked fish, if mackerel is not available in your area. I am using mackerel, because it is the cheapest and the most popular smoked fish available on Polish market. It have been always widely used by our Grandmas trying to feed large family on budget. Mackerel is a fat fish, soft and delicate.

Beef Tongues in Aspic is a dish that in Poland is served for Christmas or New Years Eve. This is an old style food, zero waste cooking and oh so yummy:) The best beef tongues in aspic I remember made our neighbor, Mirka:)

The whole preparing process may be repulsive to some people, but the tongue’s meat is very tasty and quite usual in texture.

Polish Bigos (Hunter’s Stew) is one of the most known Polish dishes. It’s pronounced: [ˈbʲiɡɔs]. Each family has it’s own recipe for bigos and each bigos is different, but the core is sauerkraut or/and fresh shredded cabbage and various kinds of chopped meats. You can use meats you like or which have left in the fridge. Yes, this is a great way to get rid of leftovers:) The more kinds of meats you use, the richer the taste, just follow your likes.

You need to stew all the ingredients for couple of hours. Some cooks are making bigos for 3 days, each day stewing again and cooling, so that bigos’ flavors combine and give the best taste:) People in Poland say that the more times you warm up bigos, the better it tastes.

Delicious vegetarian Millet Stuffed Peppers are a staple in my house. In fall months peppers are cheap, so I buy them often and serve them fresh and baked. This time I had them stuffed with vegetables and millet. I cook seasonally and locally.

Last weekend we went to Mazuria district to visit my parents. It was the second year we celebrated our family’s Baked Potato Day:) After dark we lighted a campfire and we baked sausages and potatoes. My sister-in-law, Marzena told us about an onion water from Kurpie, she tried few years ago visiting her friends. It sounded interesting, so I asked google and found an easy recipe I followed: Woda cebulowa. Actually when we were drinking it, we remembered that our Grandma was sometimes preparing this kind of drink and we had it with boiled potatoes, only she was also adding sour cream and called it Kvas.

Taste of the childhood in Poland. My Grandma was baking this traditional Polish plum yeast – risen cake on Saturdays afternoons. We were eating still warm piece of cake with cold milk. Yummy:)

You can have this Polish Yeast Cake actually with any seasonal fruits. Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, rhubarb – all will go great with a yeast cake. I love a smell of baking plums, so I choose plums:)

If you prefer apples and crusty desserts you may want to check my Polish Szarlotka recipe.

Last Saturday I found fresh forest chanterelles on a local farmers market. They are not cheap, they cost 60 PLN per 1 kg, which is more than 15 USD. However they are sooo good, that I couldn’t resist:) I was waiting the whole season to cook Chanterelle Cream Sauce.

I had some for delicious scramble eggs for breakfast.

For dinner I cooked cream sauce, which I served with grilled turkey breast, young potatoes and mizeria (cucumber salad). However you can have any nice piece of grilled or fried meat with chanterelle sauce: pork chop, beef steak or pork tenderloin. If you prefer to stick with veggie, potato dumplings, crepe and pasta would go very well with this sauce.

I remember when I was 6-8 years old, we were spending vacations on our large garden plot and sleeping in a Summer small house. My father was planting tomatoes & cucumbers for sale and other vegetables for our own use. We had zucchinis, but not eating them while they are small, but waiting them to grow to 2-3 kg each:) Then my Mum was cooking Polish Stuffed Zucchini.

Nowadays it is hard to find these big zucchinis in stores, but when I go to Farmers market, I get them from real farmers, not the sellers that buy in wholesalers and just distribute goods. They cost about 1 USD per kilogram.

Polish Stuffed Zucchini was one of the dishes that my Mum made for our big family those days. It was quite cheap to make: you use minced meat mixed with rice, so you can manage on your own the ratio between them:)

Polish Apple Pie/ Polish Apple Crumb Pie – Szarlotka is one of the most popular desserts in Polish families and in cafes in Poland. Can be served cold or warm, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a whipped cream.

This a a recipe of my mother, with one difference: she always topped the pie with meringue.

Cinnamon, taste of butter and a sourness of apples makes Szarlotka a perfect dessert:)

It is the middle of the Summer, fortunately in Poland you can still buy young spring cabbage. The taste and texture is delicate and sweet, exceptional:) Yesterday I bought one on a local market, I paid 7 PLN, which is about 2 USD. I prepare Young cabbage salad according to the directions of my sister:)

Smalczyk – Polish pork lard with cracklings is made of pork fat, you need to agree: it is not healthy. But as the fat carries a flavor – it is also goood:) Tastes best on rye bread with pickled cucumbers. Yummy.

In Poland lard is served in restaurants with polish traditional food, as a pre-starter. It is something that you get free once you place an order and wait for your food. This Smalczyk is posh and exclusive;)

However the origins of it are not so rosy. In the past people in Polish countryside were poor. When they have a pig killed, they used all the single part of it. A lard made of fat was high caloric bread spread, that gave energy for the whole day of hard work.

Few days ago I prepared Homemade Polish Paprykarz. In Poland during PRL you could buy Paprykarz Szczeciński, which was low quality fish spread with rice. You could take it with you for camping or holidays abroad:) Bulgaria was popular destination in 1980ties, because of the fact that Poland and Bulgaria were under the same communistic regime and there were restrictions on traveling to Western Europe.

You can still buy Paprykarz in stores, which looks a little bit better if you check ingredients, but I invite you to prepare it yourself at home:)

Home made Polish Chocolate Bar – Blok Czekoladowy, was a way for a treat in hard times of communistic PRL. Anyway it is really tasty and worth trying, I assure you that not only kids will like it:) You don’t bake it, it’s easy and quick to prepare.

Chłodnik Litewski

Lithuanian Cold Borsch is my soup number one in Summer. When there is hot outside, you will love cold cooling soup made of beets and beet’s leaves, buttermilk and Spring greens: dill, spring onions and cucumber.